Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Death & Supper

Sannion has recently
returned to unleashing (barbed)
mockery
and raising the question of whether one should be concerned about
giving Hekate's Deipnon to the poor; there is a trend of bypassing
the offering given at the crossroads, and instead directly donating
to the meal to the poverty stricken in the name of Hekate.

“For years in the modern
Hellenic polytheist communities, a misconception has been floating
around about the idea of the deipnon having
been a roundabout way to feed the poor. This has become so prevalent
that many people are now donating to homeless shelters and food banks
in lieu of
making proper deipna,
and that’s something I’d like to see changed. There is only a
single passage responsible for this issue, and it comes from a comic
play (that should tell you something) by Aristophanes called Plutus.
His character says:

“Why you may ask this of
Hecate, whether to be rich or hungry be better. For she herself says
that those who have and to spare, set out for her a supper once a
month, while the poor people plunder it before ’tis well set down:
but go hang thyself, and mutter not another syllable; for thou shalt
not persuade me, even though thou dost persuade me.”

If you understand the context of this conversation, you will see
that Aristophanes is not referencing an acceptable religious practice
of helping the unfortunate, but rather mocking the fact that the
hungry poor are so desperate that they will even steal food from an
ominous goddess like Hekate. (I’ll note that even in more
traditional sacrifices where the resulting meal is “shared”
between gods and worshippers, there are still parts that are
expressly reserved for the gods alone – one would never set those
out for Them and then eat the same items without fear of serious
consequences.)”

As I
also give regular offerings at the crossroads of precisely this sort,
I must admit that I agree with Dver generally. However, my outlook is
a bit different than the one Sannion is sarcastically presenting.
Over the years I've gotten to know individuals who give to the needy
in precisely the manner being criticized. I've never felt the need to
correct them because – while I am of the opinion that we are
not performing the same act –
I do not think their actions are necessarily offensive to either the
spirits of the dead, nor the Goddess Hekate.

In
Restless Dead, Sarah
Iles Johnston establishes the context of the Deipnon
beyond rites involving Hekate (Chapter 2, “To Honor and Avert:
Rituals Addressed to the Dead”). She first addresses the Deipnon
in the context of Funerary Rites (p. 40 – 43):

“Offerings were made at the grave at
the time of the funeral. These always included choai,
libations made of honey, milk, water, wine, or oil mixed in varying
amounts. There was also a “supper” (deipnon or dais)
of various foods; the dead who partook of these sometimes were
described as eudeipnoi, which we best can translate, perhaps,
as “those who are content with their meal.” The word, a euphemism, seems to reflect the
hope that, once nourished, the dead would realize that they had nothing to complain about. There is
some evidence that water was also given to the dead person so that he could wash, just a
host would give a living guest water in which to wash before a meal. Offerings to the dead might also
include jewelry, flowers, and small objects used in everyday life such as swords, strigils, toys,
and mirrors (although gifts, like lamentation, were sometimes restricted by funerary laws). It is
hard to avoid the conclusion that these gifts were expected to be useful in the afterlife, particularly
when ghost stories tell of the dead demanding objects that were forgotten or omitted at the time of
burial.” (P. 42)

But
then again, individuals who had been given proper funeral rites were
not as likely to become 'Restless' and act upon the living. The
deipnon given at the
crossroads during the dark moon
phase in honor of Hekate was a means of averting the attention of the
Restless Dead. One of
the ways by which one could end up in this situation was to not
have proper funerary rites.
Other ways involved failing to be finished with one's life: violently
dying – leading to one entering existence as a Biaiothanatos
Daimon (“Violent Death
Spirit”), or dying during childbirth (generating what S.I. Johnston
refers to as an “Aorai”),
or dying as a child, or dying before one married. While distinct, all
of these spirits were seen as restless and a plague amongst the
living. Daniel Ogden, in Greek and Roman Necromancy,
notes that some suicides were noted as such on their grave markers.
These were warnings so that one would not end up acting cheerfully
next to them, thus angering the spirit and bringing their wrath upon
one's person.

Hekate can be seen as ruling all these spirits.
The Aorai have a
rather natural sympathy with other spirits she travels with, such as
the Lamia and the
Mormo. There are PGM
spells which explicitly utilize the Holy Names
of Hekate to compel Biaiothanatos
daimons (typically for “compulsive love-curses” – in this
regard the Mistress of the Netherworld
was also considered the Demon of Love-Madness
by late antiquity). And she is referred to as surrounded by these
ghosts in her Orphic hymn.

In
Dver's entry, there is the apt reference to Aristophanes' Plutus.
The mockery of the hungry and destitute, and their willingness to
risk Hekate's wrath for a meal is... Well, I cannot help but
contemplate that those enduring starvation will pretty much eat
anything. I also found it interesting that the character declares one
should go hang thyself
in response to the matter discussed. Given that this is a rather
precise way to end up amongst the dead who are Unquiet,
I wonder if there isn't a double-joke going on.

For
example:

- The
poor – particularly the homeless – were less likely than those of
other classes to have proper funerary arrangements made for them. In
fact, one might argue that the homeless are amongst those most
predisposed to ending up in the ghastly condition of restlessness
after death. - The homeless already live amongst the restless
dead, side-by-side. While I won't argue that California is even
remotely similar to areas of Greece in antiquity, I have personally
observed the homeless in my city sleeping just outside – and if it
is raining, occasionally inside – local cemeteries.

As I
noted in my comment on one of Sannion's entries, I see the sympathy
of the street reflected in both. And given that some of those being
given meals by well meaning pagans may very well end up amongst the
tides of spirits Governed by Hekate after death, I have a hard time
feeling inclined to indicate that they stop.

For me, the
question of whether the practice is questionable or not comes down to
how the meal is consecrated, and how it is given. It becomes
questionable when you a preparing one of Hekate's Suppers
to deal with and attract a spirit of the restless dead and
explicitly pay homage to Dread Triformis so that she takes that
spirit into her Horde after the delivery of the meal to the
crossroads. On the other hand,
if that is not the what the individual is doing,
then they are giving a meal in the name of Hekate. They may be
inaccurately describing their offering as something else, but that
doesn't make it less meaningful, or more dangerous. It may be
ahistorical, but there's still plenty of good reasons to do it. One
of them means that sinister Goetes
have fewer spirits to deal with (or compel to ruin your life).

The
question of whether or not the meal can be used to honor only Hekate is
another matter; the historians I've consulted on this matter seem to
indicate that wasn't the point of the Supper,
but I again don't feel the need to tell people to stop. My personal
divination on the matter has indicated that it is a good practice. (I try to give to both, along with cleansing routines.)

I
must admit to being somewhat disappointed by those who work with
Hekate and ignore the way the dead play into one's work with her.
After all, if we were to start acknowledging the ghosts that can
become part of her Horde, we might have to honor them properly and
seek
to give them an end to their suffering.

Which, funny enough, is also the goal of providing offerings to the needy in the name of a Goddess they might come to know. I don't know. I guess I'm just never comfortable with any side of the conversation. I see the merits in multiple viewpoints, as well as (what I perceive as) downsides in multiple aspects of such a discourse.

1 comment:

Well, I cannot help but contemplate that those enduring starvation will pretty much eat anything. I also found it interesting that the character declares one should go hang thyself in response to the matter discussed. Given that this is a rather precise way to end up amongst the dead who are Unquiet, I wonder if there isn't a double-joke going on.

Yes, yes, yes. The ways of the living shape a mode of access to the dead.

If you haven't read it, I would suggest William Sax's God of Justice to you. It provides a contemporary ethnographic view on how class issues play out in Hinduism, most especially how the elite tend to deliberately distort and downplay the religious life of the poor.

Aristophanes mocking the destitute doesn't seem too different from the Brahmin distaste for the Dalit. Especially when you consider the aura of hucksterism sometimes associated with the Greek mantis...